


Circles in Circles

by CalcitriteDiscordia



Category: Original Work
Genre: Based on a dream I had, Ithoa are like goat people, Other, Random short story, it's weird but hey, mixed with the Devil from the Arcana, the main character wasn't given a name so I decided to just make it a Reader thing, think Toriel from Undertale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-13 08:44:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20579717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CalcitriteDiscordia/pseuds/CalcitriteDiscordia
Summary: You are a young Seeker, raised in one of the multiple Institutions across your homeland of Caswell on the planet Ouroboros. Currently undergoing Initiation into the Seeker program with the rest of your packmates (in other words, people who have been raised alongside you), you find out a snippet of your world's history and a dark secret you're certain you weren't supposed to uncover.Now what do you do?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As the tags said, this is based on a dream I had recently. It was surprisingly detailed and I liked the plot, so here. Have a weird planet.

_"60% of all murders in the world were committed by a single group."_

The words flash before you, gritty and fizzling, fighting to stay opaque against the thin film of white behind them. You could barely believe the statistic - how one group of people (or creatures) could kill so many people that it earned them that rank, the label of 'most dangerous', was simply beyond you.

_"How many more must die? Answer the call now and join the manhunt. You will be rewarded."_

Of course, you think, fingers curling in the faded beige uniform you wore. Every warm body in the room was swathed in the off-putting color. Like coffee with too much cream.

_"Money."_

A reedy chuckle rasps from the tall, wiry man beside you.

_"Fame."_

An excited gasp from someone in the back.

_"Glory."_

Your lip curls. Glory. The word is bitter on your tongue, lips refusing to shape it. To bring it forth.

_"Preserve our planet. Our people. Defend Ouroboros. Bring peace. Claim fortune. All that your heart desires can be yours - welcome to the Seeker program."_

The flashing, grainy words fade away and the room is black for a moment. In the pitch now surrounding you, only your smell and hearing are working for you. The musty odor of unwashed fur assails your nostrils, prompting your nose to wrinkle. The faint chatter of your packmates cuts through the silence, and you detect several emotions in their voices - hope, uncertainty, glee, fear, anger.

The room blooms white, burning colored spots into your retinas before you can close them against the offending light. In unison with you, many of the people in the room yelp or hiss or scream, and you try in vain to rub away the spots compromising your vision.

"I hope that was informative to you all," says a tall, slim, regal-looking woman with spiralling black horns, shiny with polish, and a thin face. Her eyes dart between you and your companions, mouth twisting into a frown. "You are packmates now. No self-respecting Ithoa would be caught alone either in the halls or outside of them, so get to know each other. Your fellow Seekers are going to be your greatest assets when you graduate, so be certain that you group up with a few you wouldn't mind betraying or leaving to die. Those of you with enemies, I suggest you pair off with them."

_'It's no wonder there's such a high crime rate outside the Institutions,'_ you mentally grump, narrowed eyes focused intently on the Instructor._ 'Work together, but be ready to turn on each other at a moment's notice. What kind of stupid idea is that?'_

The Instructor (you never bothered to remember her name, all of the teachers sounded the same and conducted themselves the same way - hell, they had a uniform, no way to mistake individuality here) passed out small packets of parchment that you immediately thumbed through, frowning. The parchment was thick, yellowing at the frayed edges.

"Do not write in your packets."

Well, now that temptation was there. You hadn't even thought about defacing the…

_Fwip. Fwip._

… Historical documents. Oh, how stimulating. Jaw set, you skimmed the first few lines.

**Chapter One: The Culling**

Oh, starting strong. Well, you supposed it was hard to go wrong with such a compelling title - who WOULDN'T want to read about mass murder? Fascinating.

**Ithoa have always been intelligent, industrious people with a knack for technology. Early in our development as a race, we discovered how to escape the ever-present fear of our own mortality**

This certainly won't be morally shucked all to oblivion, no siree.

**by combining our own living people with machinery.**

'Called it.'

These constructs, once coveted as ways to bring back deceased loved ones or spare the dying, have since been recognized as a threat that should be eliminated, and so all of the creatures, appropriately named 'Abominations', were completely and violently destroyed.

Abominations. There's a name you hadn't heard since your small-child days. Of course it was speculated that an Abomination was the one who was responsible for so many killings, but they couldn't just disappear without a trace.

… Could they?

However, it is rumored that there are some who refused to part with their Abomination servants, as there are many jobs that are more unpleasant than any Ithoa of good standing can tolerate. Despite our government's enthusiastic orders that all Abominations be disposed of, there are still some who may have kept one or two constructs. These must be dealt with. The mistakes of the past must be rectified for a better tomorrow.

Certainly not the government. You put the packet down, blowing a lock of hair from your face, and scan your packmates. Some are immersed in the reading, completely invested in the history of Ouroboros and the Abominations. Others are talking quietly amongst themselves so as not to alert the Instructor, who sits at her desk, thick black book in hand.

As you thoughtlessly turn a page so as not to give away your complete lack of interest, one paragraph at the bottom of the page catches your eye, handwritten in thick, dark red ink.

We are separated from our families and put into the Institutions at birth, never knowing our parents or siblings, because they don't want us forming attachments. The Abominations aren't gone, they're everywhere. The government always needs new servants, and they throw out the ones they don't want anymore and call them 'fair game'. Don't let them lie to you. They don't want you knowing that you might be killing your family when they turn you loose.

Your blood runs cold and you quickly shut the packet, fingers digging into the parchment. Slowly, you glance towards the Instructor. She's still absorbed in her reading, paying none of you any mind. Tuning in to the conversations of three others in the room, you manage to pick up snippets - but nothing related to what you've just read.

You never questioned the Institutions, or why children were raised in their walls from the time they were old enough to leave the medical bay they were born in. You simply figured it was a quirk of your society. Surely it couldn't be that nefarious, could it? Anger boiled in your blood as you realized how your people weaponized children to do the dirty work they couldn't be bothered to in the name of 'rectifying' their so-called 'past mistakes'.

Suddenly, the clip you were shown at the beginning of your Initiation made you sick. You had to do something with this new information - but what?


	2. Someone to Get Lost With

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone else has a page of red text. You're excited for the prospect of adventure - your new friend is right there with you, happy to discuss the mystery of the odd text and a new discovery that may just bring some excitement to your otherwise boring, repetitive lives.

"Excuse me, Instructor? Is all of the information in these packets correct? Have they been modified in any way?"

The sudden voice pulls you from the gloom of your thoughts, and you whirl around to see the speaker. She's a petite thing, pretty, with short ivory horns and pitch-black fur save for a white patch over her right eye and a small, heart-shaped white spot directly on her nose. Her hand is lifted high, calling the Instructor's attention.

"Yes, of course," the Instructor huffs shortly, peering down her long muzzle at the girl whose name you can't quite remember. You didn't spend much time with her over the years, admittedly. "All of the information presented in those packets is completely factual. If you've reason to doubt, show me why."

She tenses, clutching the parchment protectively to her chest. With a quick shake of her head, she dismisses the idea. You understand completely - if she's found something like you have, then it would be stupid to call attention to it.

"No, you're right. It was foolish of me to doubt written facts. After all, it wouldn't be passed down for generations if it wasn't the whole truth," the girl amends. Something dark stirs in the Instructor's eyes and her lip curls marginally.

"Right you are, Aarti. The rest of you, take note - these truths may be cold, they may be harsh, but they are truths that you must never question. If there was ever any doubt about the facts presented in our history, it would fail to be history. Instead, it would be fanciful tales of fantasy written by fools who could not accept reality." The Instructor straightens, sharp eyes scanning the class. Not a single soul dares utter a word under her scrutiny.

After a moment, she returns to her seat, and chatter gradually spreads throughout the classroom once more. You peer over at Aarti, thumb flicking the corner of your parchment packet until she notices the noise and looks your way. You tap your packet and give her a reassuring smile - she seems to understand, eyes widening slightly as she realizes she's not the only one privy to a secret.

You meet her after class, packet tucked safely beneath your arm. Each of you were encouraged to keep them as study material, which you were intensely grateful for. After all, now you had proof to show Aarti. Just in case she thought she was-

"I thought I was going crazy," Aarti admits timidly, scuffing the tile below with a careless swipe of her hoof. "These weird notes in the margins… did your text say anything about the Abominations?"

"Maybe don't say that so loud," you warn gently. She claps a hand over her mouth, looking embarrassed, and you flash a quick smile. "Sorry. Maybe I should be a little gentler with people."

"It's okay, I mean… you didn't really talk to many people, did you? I hardly ever saw you with anyone." Aarti fidgets with one long ear, swaying slightly on her cloven hooves. Now it's your turn to be embarrassed - you didn't think anyone ever really acknowledged you growing up, or at least didn't bother to look too closely. You can't remember having many friends.

"You, uh. Noticed." Duh. You'd been a wallflower all your life, it wasn't hard to come to the conclusion that someone had noticed your introverted behavior.

"Well, yes!" She's bright all of a sudden, beaming from ear to floppy ear. "I notice everyone! I'm not exactly the first person running out to make friends, so… I do a lot of people-watching."

You feel a little self-conscious. Still, you suppose it's kind of nice to know you weren't the only kid too awkward to initiate contact. Silence stretches between the two of you for what feels like ages until you finally decide that it's uncomfortable and you don't like it. "So. Packets."

"Oh, right! Come on, let's go back to the dorms to study. I don't think a lot of the others paid attention to anything beyond what they needed to know for all of that fame and glory nonsense. A bunch of _pukhi_, if you ask me." She winks one big brown eye, tongue poking out of her mouth, and you finally feel comfortable enough to say that yes, you like this one. She's good people. Anyone willing to swear in casual conversation was alright in your book.

The dormitories aren't exactly the lap of luxury - especially for the lower-class kids like you and Aarti. Even within the walls of the Institutions, there's a strict caste system that supposedly mimics that of the outside world, and you find it to be frankly ridiculous and completely unnecessary, especially given that you're all supposed to be working towards the same goal. You and your new buddy are firmly on the bottom rung of the social ladder, and that means you get the least comfortable accommodations.

Aarti plops herself down on a thin straw mattress at the back of the large room, no walls between each bed to offer any sort of privacy. The bathroom was much of the same, with communal 'stalls' and showers. Nudity and bodily functions weren't exactly the kind of thing anyone worried about, as a result. You join her, flipping your packet open to the red-inked page and handing it to the girl, receiving hers in turn.

The words in Aarti's packet are written in the same ink, but a different hand. There was more than one person at work trying to dismantle your 'completely accurate history' - you suspected a small group.

**It's not just that the Abominations are still out there, and being made. It's that they are linked to everything. We need you to uncover the whole truth. We don't have much time. Help us. Find Aengi. Aengi will help you. We will help you.**

"Wow. That's totally not ominous or anything. What kind of name is Aengi?" You ask, flipping a page to make sure you weren't missing anything. Aarti shrugs, shaking her head.

"I wish I knew. You got a much longer and more detailed message than I did, but mine included a name. I wonder if we're the only two?" She looks at you expectantly, as if she thinks you somehow know if someone else got a weird set of totally-not-infuriatingly-vague instructions from beyond the parchment.

"Dunno. I can't imagine we're the only ones. A team of two is good, but a team of three or four is more solid. If it were me, I'd go with one of those numbers. Triangles are pretty stable." You reason, standing up and trading packets back with the girl - but when you hand the parchment back, a single leaf of thin paper drifts from between two pages.

"What the-?" Your nose wrinkles as you pick up the fallen sheet of worn parchment, so old that the surface is soft like treated hides. You turn over the paper, and mirror Aarti's gasp at what you see.

It's a map of your Institution, "#2646" scrawled hastily in the top right corner over an elaborate depiction of the massive building, with criss-crossing passages everywhere that you'd never seen before.

"This thing has secret passages all over it," Aarti breathes in wonder. "I wonder if Aengi drew it?"

"Who knows, maybe," you say quickly, eyes furiously scanning the page for any hint of what might be beyond the tunnels. "There's nothing descriptive on here save for room names. Looks like we'll just have to do all of the exploring for ourselves, huh?"

"Oh, darn," Aarti sighs melodramatically, "and here I was thinking the map would just hold doors open for us and say, 'ohh, right this way, my friends!' But it looks like we're just going to have to make it an adventure… how disappointing..."

You snort, unable to hold in a laugh at the complete ridiculousness of your new friend. "Hey, in a place this gloomy, a kid can hope for some excitement, right? Let's get some shut-eye - we can start looking for those tunnels in the morning. Keep your packet and page in your pillowcase so nobody nabs it. We don't know who else might be looking."

Aarti carefully folds her parchment and the map before inserting it as deep into the pillowcase as she can reach, whereas you just sort of stuff yours in haphazardly beneath your pillow inside the case before bedding down, dragging your bed over next to Aarti's to doze off together. It's hard to get to sleep - both of you are excited by the prospect of finding secret parts of the castle, but you eventually have to make yourselves sleep when other kids start filtering into the room, making chatting impossible.


End file.
